Mobile World Congress 2019: it’s a wrap…

Mar 1, 2019

Kathy Gibson was at Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona – Barcelona this week welcomed 100 000 people to the biggest telecommunications show on the planet: Mobile World Congress 2019.

The theme of this year’s event was 5G all the way, with vendors and telecommunications operators occupying three conference and exhibition venues around the city vying to showcase their 5G solutions or launch 5G services.

South Africa was part of the action, with Rain announcing the first commercial 5G networks on the African continent will be going live by mid-year.

Not to be outdone, Kenya’s Safaricom also made an industry-first announcement and will become the only operator in the world to roll out a 400G network.

Another recurring theme at the event was Internet of Things (IoT) – dozens if not hundreds of vendors showed their IoT solutions for use cases ranging from smart agriculture to supply chain/logistics, connected factories and smart cities.

Once again, South Africa made the headlines in the IoT space: local start-up IoT.nxt announced a collaboration with Adtran, a leading provider of next-generation open networking and subscriber experience solutions, to help carriers and enterprises design new services and solutions by bringing together various streams of IoT device data into a single platform.

Meanwhile, MTN has partnered with Eseye and the AnyNet Federation, a new association of MNOs established specifically to meet the complex management and enhanced resilience requirements of the rapidly expanding global M2M IoT customer base.

The conference programme leaned heavily to artificial intelligence (AI), its application in a variety of use cases, and the challenges around solving questions of privacy and ethics.

A roundup of IT-Online’s MWC 2019 news can be accessed here:

Emerging markets lead in digital innovation

Emerging markets are not only capable of becoming digital economies: they are already leading in numerous areas.

The disruption we see in the developing world is a little different from developed markets and is potentially life-changing, points out Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx.

Rain rolls out 5G to Cape Town with Nokia

South African operator Rain is in the headlines again, launching South Africa’s first commercial-ready 5G network in Cape Town.

Rain deployed the first 5G site last November, and aims to introduce 5G services in South Africa’s major cities this year. Earlier this week, it announced that it is partnering with Huawei to build a 5G network in Johannesburg.

5G set to soar in MEA

5G is expected to reach 30-million subscriptions for enhanced mobile broadband in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) by the end of 2024, representing 2% of total mobile subscriptions. This will make 5G the fastest generation of cellular technology to be rolled out on a global scale, according to the new MEA edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report.

Key drivers for 5G deployment include increased network capacity, lower cost per gigabyte and new use case requirements.

GSMA calls for connectivity-friendly regulations

The GSMA is calling on the European parliament to modernise regulation and create the right conditions for a new era of intelligent connectivity.

The organisation has launched “The Mobile Industry Manifesto for Europe” on behalf of its European members, highlighting its vision for Europe’s digital future. Ahead of the European Parliament elections this spring.

WiFi 6 a catalyst for intelligent connectivity

The industry is pushing towards the goal of a fully-connected intelligent world, but the challenges of capacity, bandwidth and latency threaten its smooth adoption.

This is the word from Steven Zhao, campus network domain president at Huawei Data Communications product line, who adds that WiFi 6 offers a solution that enables this intelligent connected world to empower industry transformation.

Distributed storage enables cloud-based telecoms

As telecommunications operators move to cloud-based data centres and networks, distributed storage is becoming a necessary reality for them.

Huawei has launched its next generation of data centre-level converged distributed storage. FusionStorage 8.0 is designed to help carriers and other enterprise users to cope with cloud migration challenges, according to Meng Guangbin, president of IT product line intelligent storage and data management domain at Huawei Technologies.

What’s keeping operator CTOs up at night?

In the era of intelligent connectivity, networks are key to bringing everything together – and this puts the chief technology officers (CTOs) of the world’s telecommunications companies on the spot.

5G has the potential to be a real game-changer for telcos, but the realisation is dawning that the underlying telecoms platforms need to have a new and flexible architecture that allows them to take advantage of not only 5G, but all new technologies and innovations coming down the line.

eSIM adoption takes off in China

The global eSIM ecosystem has taken off over the past two years, driven in large part by standards adopted by the GSMA as well as massive take-up by Chinese telcos.

A new report highlighting the significant progress made by Chinese mobile operators, vendors and manufacturers in adopting Remote SIM Provisioning and eSIM technologies, “eSIM in China: the road ahead” was prepared by GSMA Intelligence in partnership with the Telecommunication Terminal Industry Forum Association (TAF).

Rakuten Selects NEC’s and Netcracker’s solutions

NEC Corporation and Netcracker Technology announced today that Rakuten, the Japan-based global leader in internet services, has selected Netcracker’s next-generation digital business and operations solutions to enable a disruptive go-to-market strategy with its mobile network launch.

Rakuten will leverage Netcracker’s end-to-end digital BSS solution to ensure the delivery of consistent and superior digital experiences across its communications channels.